


Bagels and Bandaids and Bad Guys and Breakfast

by florahart



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bakery AU, M/M, Phil builds teams even when they're neighborhood communities, clint/bandaids otp, implicit mack/yoyo hint, many references to other MCU/AOS characters, phil coulson was a boy scout for sure, threat of avocado-radish scones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-10 12:47:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12912237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/pseuds/florahart
Summary: Clint owns a bakery/coffee shop, and he needs the following: an accountant, an occasional medic, and for those assholes in the track suits to just gtfo.Phil shows up looking for part time work just in time to meet some of those needs.  And maybe some other needs too.





	Bagels and Bandaids and Bad Guys and Breakfast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ralkana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ralkana/gifts).



“Your bagels are on fire.”

Clint looked up at the guy in the suit, who was holding onto a zippered leather clipboard case against his ribs with one hand and a phone he was looking at and quickly thumbing words into with the other. “What?”

“Your bagels. In the kitchen. In the oven. Are on fire.” The guy glanced up, sharp blue eyes meeting Clint’s for a nanosecond that Clint decided he wanted to last indefinitely because obviously he was going to fall hard at first glance for a guy who was willing to look at him for .02 seconds to tell him his products were literally burning up. 

Clint looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, a thin stream of smoke was rising, and …damn it. There was the fire alarm sounding. “It’s okay everyone, I’ve got it, we’re all fine,” Clint shouted as he tossed the pencil behind his ear at the alarm reset button on his way around the corner to get the oven. “Kate? Darcy? Yoyo? Anyone at all?” He grabbed the mitt on the side counter as he went past it and yanked the tray out of the oven, glad to see it was in fact only smoke but for three small(ish) flames that sputtered as they passed quickly through cooler air

Then he hollered because you know what? This oven mitt was set aside for a reason.

And that reason was a hole.

In the mitt.

Damn it.

He slapped at the remaining flames a couple of times and then dropped the tray on the prep table with a clatter and shook the mitt off, glaring at the red and already-blistering area between his thumb and first finger. Wow, it was going to be a great one, too; the hole was fully an inch long, and right where the webbing between the thumb and finger stretched. And it hurt. Fuck.

“I assume you have some cold water?” That was the guy with the clipboard again, who had apparently made himself right at home and come back into the kitchen. He closed the nearby flour barrel and dropped the clipboard on it, then tucked his pen into an inner pocket of his jacket.

“Yeah, and like, health code, man, you can’t just go lying shit around on my foodstuffs!” Clint scowled for emphasis even though there were the blue eyes again, this time looking at him with some concern. Ugh.

“That would be why I closed the barrel first, and I assume you have a protocol for cleaning off general dust and the like, so probably you don’t have a problem. Although I appreciate your devotion to clean flour. Cold water?”

Clint pressed his lips together with irritation, but turned on the cold tap and stuck his hand under the stream. “Long as you’re in my kitchen uninvited, wanna bring me the bandaids?” Clint nodded toward the white plastic kit on a nail on the wall under the big clock. “Pretty sure this is gonna bust open soon enough, regardless of cold water doctoring.”

The guy went and got the kit, then frowned and shook it. “Well. Is there a secondary bandage supply?” He clicked the little tab thing and showed Clint there was nothing but a squished-empty antibiotic tube and a pair of tweezers rattling around in the case.

“Aw, bandaids, no.” Clint sighed. “No, I guess the replacement set hasn’t come in yet.”

“Keeping first-aid supplies on hand is important. You should follow up with your vendor.”

“I would, but I only ordered them Saturday.”

“Ordering promptly is also important.”

“I did.”

“You did. This kit says it should hold: sixty-two one-inch plastic bandages, a sling, two larger bandages, ten fingertip bandages, six knuckle ones, antiseptic wipes, individual packets of acetaminophen, two antiseptic ointment tubes, some nitrile gloves, and these tweezers.” He looked up from the back of the box. “Surely you should have ordered when you were running low?”

“What’re you, my mother?”

“No, I imagine that would involve my being female?”

“And a lot less interested in my well-being,” Clint said, bitterly. “Plus, I dunno, you could identify as female. I don’t even know your name.”

“Coulson. Phil Coulson.”

“Is that like Bond-James-Bond? You a spy?”

“Yes. Yes, I am a spy who moonlights as an ad-hoc accountant looking after the fiscal solvency of bakers with bandaid shortages.”

“You’re the accountant? You’re super early.”

“Yes, because I meant to have a coffee and pastry before our meeting and get a feel for the place. Also, I was under the impression I was meeting with a Kate, whom you are not as you shouted for her before.”

“Yeah, okay, true, and probably that’s why she’s not in the kitchen, huh? She’s been doing the books and generally helping out around here part time while she’s in grad school but she has an assistantship starting and can’t promise her time after the first of the year. Anyway. Hi Coulson Phil Coulson, I’m Clint, my hand is going numb from cold water which I do have to say is a giant improvement over the whole throbfest I’m gonna have when I come away from it because burns completely suck, I still don’t have any bandaids, and I guess bagels are off, but maybe I could get you a muffin or a sandwich? I make a mean chicken salad even when it’s on an ordinary baguette. Coffee’s fresh either way.”

“So, there’s no secondary bandage supply.” 

“No, I was not really low yet until I kind of had a small incident Friday night. It might have used up a lot of bandaids, although I didn’t know it was actually all of them or I might have stopped at the 7-Eleven for at least a travel kit.”

“I see.” Coulson looked at the angry blister. “ Well, I think that’s going to need real bandaging anyway, so perhaps you should just go to an urgent care clinic?”

“There’s one half a mile or so up the street, but I try to save that for times gangrene seems like an outcome I need to actually try to avoid. I pay them enough as it is.”

“No insurance?” Coulson raised his eyebrows. “Your staff—“

“—have a fairly decent insurance option, because I am not an asshole. However, copays are a thing, and also I’m apparently, um, high risk? So I try not to give them a reason to dump me, right?”

Coulson shook his head and reached inside his jacket again, coming away with a small packet that turned out to have a tear-open antiseptic ointment envelope, three bandaids, a tiny lidocaine injector capsule, some matches, a curved needle, some suture thread, and what must be a single-use spray bottle of skin-covering bandaid alternative. “Well then,” he said, “I suppose we’ll have to make do.”

Clint held out his hand. “You are totally hired. But let’s not shake on it, because ow.”

\--

“Tell me more about this Friday bandaid incident and your frequent interactions with the clinic up the street,“ Coulson said, once he was settled across from Kate and Clint with coffee, a large pumpkin cream cheese muffin, a piece of bacon-mushroom quiche, a thick sandwich on toast, and a tall glass of water.

What? Clint was making sure he was well fed, and his muffins and quiches were to die for, thanks. Plus, he’d left it to Darcy to choose the best of everything while they arranged themselves at the table.

“Clint. I thought we talked about not scaring away the affordable accountant with your harrowing tales of doom,” Kate said. She kicked him under the table.

“It just came up! While he was fixing my blister!” Clint waved his bandaged and ointmented hand. “Not my fault.”

“Yes. It’s much better that you first interacted with the poor man by needing rescuing. Twice. I feel almost immeasurably reassured.”

“Not my fault either.” Clint scowled. Kate’s dry sarcasm was one of his favorite things about her, but it was kind of annoying when she was right. “I mean, okay, Darcy was on break and Yoyo wasn’t in yet so maybe I should have been watching the oven a little better except I didn’t know she’d gone because my left ear is having intermittent fu…tzery, and also I forgot I put the mitt aside earlier so I guess technically that’s on me except it was like an hour ago and the tracksuit boys were here so I got sidetracked. Sidetracksuited.”

“Tracksuit boys?” Coulson sniffed the muffin, then hmmed, picked up a fork, and started on the quiche. “This is good.”

“Thanks.”

“So, tracksuit boys?” Coulson prompted again.

“Oh they’re like, Russian mo—ow!” Clint frowned as Kate kicked him again. 

“Russian ma?” Coulson said. “The word that comes to mind is mobster, but the newspapers would seem to indicate they’re mostly a fixture in the city?”

“Yeah, they are, but I might have sort of stolen their dog they were abusing? Also not my fault; they should have made better choices.” Clint didn’t add, _and they come visit me every few weeks to make sure I remember they might want to set me on fire and when they do I find a perch on a fire escape and warn them off with arrows from the shadows which is definitely not what I was doing on Friday shut up._

“And so they keep an eye on you?”

“Hey, I mean, I keep one on _them_. That’s why they were distracting: I know they’re assholes, and I wanted to make sure there was no trouble.”

“Do you suppose there’s a relationship between their visits and your persistent interaction with the local clinic and precipitous decline in bandaid supply?” Coulson finished all but the crust of the quiche, leaving it sitting on the plate, and looked Clint in the eye. “I asked around after I set up our appointment, and it seems there are several people in the neighborhood who are visited by them periodically.”

Clint frowned. “No, man, that’s, they’re more the run over you with a car type, not the set your bagels on fire and steal your plastic stickies type. Also hey you just acted like this was all new information but you’ve been asking? Rude.”

Kate sighed dramatically and put her head in her hands. “Clint, this is _not what we talk about_ when we want someone to join the team.”

“Well he seems like he already knew and showed up anyway, so I mean.”

Coulson picked up half of the sandwich. “I do already know. Tell me about the Friday incident.”

“I sort of got snagged in on a jagged piece of fire escape?” Clint leaned to one side and lifted up he hem of his shirt to show the bottom end of a long and sort of alarming starting-to-heal cut that was still bruised greenish. He didn’t think it was necessary to let Coulson know right this minute that it went from his under his ribs to up past one nipple, or to mention that it had happened while he was falling and was only one of half a dozen places bandaids had been applied. None of the rest were all that bad, though.

“Midnight parkour, or are you a cat burglar on the side?” Coulson asked, raising an eyebrow and taking a bite of the sandwich. “This _is_ a mean chicken salad, by the way.”

Clint stared. “Did you seriously just ask me if I hurt myself stealing from my neighbors? And then compliment my cooking?”

“Well, it’s good, and I like to understand the dynamics of a situation in which I expect to involve myself, so.”

“And if I said yes, it was the burgling?”

“I would suggest there are better uses of your particular talents, Hawkeye.”

Kate pinched the bridge of her nose. “One, I am not at all necessary for this conversation. Two, Clint, where did Nat find this guy?”

“Three,” Clint said, trying to keep his pulse and blood pressure somewhere out of the how-about-an-aneurism range because what the _fuck_ , “Who’s Hawkeye?”

Coulson sipped his coffee. “A Midwestern sideshow performer who dropped out of sight about eight years ago but prior to that travelled throughout the rust belt engaging in feats of acrobatic archery.”

“Acrobatic archery is a thing?” Clint knew he was probably completely fucking up the innocent act, but as he had actually _no idea_ what was going on, he was going to milk it.

“Oh, I think you know. So. How about the accounts, Kate? Are we losing money fast, or slow?”

Kate dropped her chin, as though she was looking at him over nonexistent glasses. “Neither. If _we_ were losing money, I would have suggested some adjustments to revenue or expenses because even though I am not really an accountant, I’m also not completely incompetent at how budgets work.”

“Or me,” Clint said.

“Yes, or you,” she said. This was probably ruined by the fact that she patted his hand as she said it. “Of course, boss. Definitely good with the budget.”

Coulson finished his half-sandwich and looked back and forth between them, but didn’t pursue the topic.

\--

“Is this going to work as an office space for you?” Clint indicated a desk in the corner of the supply room, which did have a hanging overhead light, a power strip run from the kitchen, and almost enough room to maneuver, but which otherwise didn’t have a lot to recommend it. Kate’s textbooks were piled against the wall, though, and she’d promised to get those out of the way as soon as they had someone one board so it would get slightly better soon.

“I _could_ work from my laptop in the lobby,” Coulson said. “I didn’t expect that a very part-time gig such as this one would entail an office and all the fixings.”

“Well, I mean, part-time accountant and, as your interview probably led you to believe, occasional medic, psychologist, or kitchen-watcher.”

“I do work half-time as a cargo inspector near the docks, early mornings usually, and sometimes find myself drafted to do just about anything, but technically, I don’t have any of those skills.”

“Uh-huh.” Clint wasn’t buying. “Part time accountant and cargo diviner. But anyway, I figure you should have a space where we can leave stuff you need to see or whatever.”

“It’s fine.” Coulson set his clipboard on a nearby shelf and bent to peer under the desk at the power situation. “Plugs, even,” he said, straightening up.

Clint was a little busy trying not to be obviously staring at the man’s ass (hey, it was right there!), but he managed to nod. “I have a couple of adapters around, but probably you have one for your laptop anyway, right?”

“Right.” 

There was an awkward pause, then Coulson said, “So, your hand is feeling better?”

“You gave it lidocaine and did minor surgery. I think it will be fine.”

“Lido’ll wear off – you should probably still take it to the clinic.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll see how it feels in the morning. Hey, do I owe you anything for your little kit thing?”

“Nah. I carry it in case it’s needed, but I have spares.” Coulson looked around. “We should probably get done with paperwork if I’m going to be in your employ. Unless you imagined this as an independent contractor sort of gig, but that didn’t seem to be what Kate thought when we spoke the other day.”

“Right, no. Actual tax withholdings and stuff.” Clint pursed his lips and looked around, then took his best guess by opening a drawer in the file cabinet that sat sideways and defined the “back” of the little office. “Nope, must be…” He opened the next drawer down, then slammed it shut; right, that one had his gear. He should probably invest in a lock. 

The third time was the charm, and he dragged out an application form and the stuff Kate always made him fill out with new counter and kitchen staff. “Um, I don’t…” he looked at the desk. “Do you have a pen?”

Coulson chuckled (and hey, that was totally lethal too, ugh) and held one up. “Yep. Why don’t we take this out to a table. Little cramped back here for two, don’t you think?”

Clint ignored the part of his brain that noted that two people in close quarters could be a _really good thing_ , and backed out of the supply room, scraping his elbow on the frame of a shelf and banging his shoulder on the doorframe as he went. Because he was smooth as fuckin’ silk and definitely an adult. Yes.

The table out front wasn’t a lot better because Clint didn’t want to take up the now-cleared large table they’d used before, so he steered them to one of the cute little round spots at the periphery. They sat across from each other, feet and knees bumping, and went through the documents, Coulson articulating what everything was and why, and Clint agreeing as though he definitely knew the detailed ins and outs of HR paperwork and also was 100% not distracted by the knee action.

Halfway through, he realized the buzz of people talking was pretty loud and looked around to realize the place was full, the display case was looking less than robust despite that Yoyo definitely had a bunch of stuff cranked out back in the kitchen, and there was a line almost to the door. “Uh, hold on, let me go soothe the masses a little while you fill out the rest. I’ll be back.” He moved behind the counter, washed his hands, and took over the espresso station from Leo, who was a great kid and sometimes got a bit frazzled. Leo liked the simplicity of stocking the case, and Clint wasn’t the owner because he couldn’t run the place alone, bandaid situation notwithstanding.

The full Tom-Cruise-in-Cocktail act wasn’t particularly unusual for him, entertaining the line while he busted out the drinks, but he did admit to himself he might be showing off a TINY bit juggling the sprinkle shakers without spilling.

When the situation eased and he went back to the table, Coulson had the stack of paperwork complete and laid out for signature. “No bandages required?” he asked.

“Making coffee?”

“You hurt yourself making bagels earlier, and I wasn’t aware throwing glass items around was a low-risk activity, so it seemed like a fair question.”

Clint blushed and went back to signing. “Well that part’s easy,” he mumbled.

“And good for business. I wasn’t complaining, just surprised,” Coulson said. “It had previously seemed as though perhaps anything might lead to bandages.” He paused while Clint scowled at him, then added. “Perhaps you should view your mafia-dissuasion activities as a high-wire event, and see if that helps.”

Clint didn’t confirm or deny, but couldn’t maintain the scowl in the face of such smartassesery so he grinned. “I guess if I run into anyone in the mafia I’ll see if it does.”

\--

To Clint’s surprise, Coulson settled right in, showing up for threeish hours a couple of afternoons a week to fool with payroll (Tuesdays) and supply-and-account stuff (Fridays), usually taking Clint up on a sandwich and always drinking his weight in coffee. He also got to know the neighbors, and three weeks later he asked if it would be all right to use the space Clint had already established for him to put in a few hours a week for Mack, the auto-body guy up the block. 

Clint legitimately couldn’t think of a reason to say no, but also he didn’t really want to; by that point he was nursing a serious and unremitting crush on the man, which was definitely Kate’s fault for bringing in all this competence and broad knowledge base behind kind eyes and a smart mouth. Jesus. Plus, even though he was personally a romance trainwreck, he’d definitely seen Yoyo and Mack making eyes at each other so that was a pretty good excuse to help out. 

“Sure,” he said. “I mean, I assume you have a handle on making sure nothing interferes with anything else.

It wasn’t that surprising two weeks down the road to find that he was there every afternoon: Wednesdays he worked on Mack’s accounts, which included relatively little payroll (a wrong-side-of-the-tracks kid named Robbie and a scrawny hothead from Brooklyn named Steve seemed to be most of his crew) but a lot of tracking on supply chains. Thursday he seemed to be unraveling some kind of complicated tax problem for a guy named Blake, first name or last name, Clint wasn’t sure, that had just bought a bookstore around the corner after some kind of horrible accident that had him in a whole bunch of casts and slings (Clint sympathized). He wasn’t sure what the Monday activity was, but it probably involved invoices of some kind and a lot of triplicate copies, and in any case he decided he didn’t actually care because feeding Phil while he worked was turning out to be among his favorite activities.

\--

“Did you hire a guy named Thor?” 

Clint turned around from where he was reaching up for the last case of sleeves for the cups. “What? Oh.” Phil was on the phone, other ear covered with one hand. 

“Right, but I need his employment eligibility documents. No, I agree, they have excellent medical training in Norway. This doesn’t alter the fact that noncitizens require work authorization. His citizenship is…what?” Finally, Phil sighed. “Look, can you just send him to me on Monday? I’m sure we can straighten it out, but—all right. Thanks.” He ended the call and turned to Clint. “So far, your hiring practices are more stable than anyone else in the neighborhood.”

“Are you doing work for the clinic, too?”

“Only a little. Apparently their HR guy is on parental leave and they’ve been struggling, so I thought I could fit in some time to help them on Mondays; the travel agency’s books are surprisingly clean.”

“You’re working for Nat, too? Was this all part of her plan in the first place? Also, no that’s not surprising at all; she and Maria, besides being terrifying when crossed, are two of the most efficient people ever born. Them and you, I mean. Not that you’re terrifying. Efficient. You’re. Anyway. Nat and Maria probably just told the paperwork to behave and it commenced immediately.”

“Ah, you know them beyond the referral?”

Clint narrowed his eyes. “You knew about the Russian guys but you don’t know that? I think your spy skills are either slipping or are being put to use misdirecting me.”

Phil chuckled. “Fine, I confess to nosiness. Still, I wasn’t aware you were anything but neighbors. But is it all right that this is all work I’m doing in your space? I asked about one, but not the others.”

“Eh. It’s not like I need your desk space for our morning yoga or anything. But don’t they have an office? At the clinic. I mean, wouldn’t it be more convenient?”

Phil paused. “Maybe, but I’m finding having everything in one place is working for me. Plus, I’m almost positive no one at the clinic would bring me snacks and clean up the dishes when I was done eating.”

“Okay, I can see that.” Clint looked over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “Speaking of: what’s your position on scones? Savory? Sweet? Salty?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a salty scone.”

“Well, I mean, there’s a first time for everything?”

“There is. Surprise me. With the scone.”

“Surprise you?”

“I like surprises,” Phil said. 

“Oh, really.” Clint raised his eyebrows. “Man, you are a mystery. Triplicate forms, emergency first aid, and scone surprisings. I keep thinking I got you figured out…” He didn’t add that probably this was because he spent about 0% of waking hours (and 3% of sleeping ones) not thinking about Phil at this point. Just because he was looking didn’t mean Phil wanted to hear about it.

“Pssh. I’m easy.”

Easy, huh? Clint let that sit there nodded. “Well, I’ll be back with your surprise. Although it’s not my fault if you turn out to be allergic to avocado-radish scones.”

“…Okay, maybe surprise me less than that.”

Clint laughed and headed back toward the kitchen.

\--

“Hey Yoyo, can you grab me the first aid kit and also, um, hey maybe your buddy Mack could give me a hand?” Clint didn’t wait for an answer before swinging himself in through the clerestory window over the north end of the dining area one-handed. He landed a little harder than he wanted to on a table top, then gasped when he was (dammit) off-center and the table toppled. 

Which shouldn’t have happened; he knew where he’d left the table when he’d mopped up, so what the hell. But this mattered less than the fact that when the table went down he had no choice to roll out of the fall, which for one thing felt seriously unfunny on his dislocated shoulder, and for another ripped loose part of the knot he’d tied around the gash that had accompanied it. Ow. He got back to his feet because staying down was not a thing he preferred to do, then stared at the table in betrayal. “Yoyo?” 

Well, fuck; apparently she’d clocked out early. That was fucking inconvenient; dealing with a popped-out shoulder alone was one of the aspects of Clint’s life he’d hoped he’d left far behind. Very far. Saturn far.

“Clint, how do these things happen to you?” Phil asked. 

Clint spun (ow) to find Phil in the open doorway to the kitchen, backlit with his hands on his hips. “Uh. I’m accident prone?”

“Dislocated shoulders that come with, oh for fuck’s sake, you have a knife wound? So, I’m going to say that’s not an accident. That’s a street-fight and as you are both wearing ninja gear and carrying a quiver, I’m also going to say you went looking for it.

“Where’s Yoyo?”

“Mack came by to drop off some things. They got to talking. She left the bread proofing and said she’d be back in an hour or so.”

“Seriously? She, like, _never_ \--”

“It’s possible Mack was encouraged to come by at an opportune moment. Come on, let’s see whether this is one of those things you should definitely take to the clinic. By the way, have I mentioned I renegotiated the scope of the insurance plan so that everyone on the block is falling into a single group plan?”

Clint winced as Phil put a hand under his elbow to take the weight of his arm, and carefully arranged them over to a nearby (nontoppled) table as smoothly as possible. “So you’re now a spy accountant medic who matchmakes?”

“I didn’t say I had anything to do with it.”

“Mm. I see. And I definitely was not doing any ninjaing.”

“Obviously.” Phil snagged the chair and somehow propelled Clint into it without changing the pressure situation on his shoulder much at all (wait, _who_ was the ninja here? What the fuck), then said, “Stay,” and went into the kitchen to get a stack of towels and the first aid kit.

Which was four times the size of the one Clint had previously had. “Uh. Wait, what was that about the insurance and also did you order me a new--”

“Seemed prudent, and we;ll come back to the insurance. Kate may have had some opinions about your self-care capacities.”

“Wait, you talked to Kate? How’s she doing? I mean, obviously she’s killing it because that girl has brains to spare but I haven’t wanted to bother her and--”

“I speak with her on Tuesdays at three, after her office hour. She answers any questions I have.”

“About my bandaid supply?” Clint frowned. “That seems like a lot of calls for stickies.”

“And anything else that might come up. Now, if you’ll just...” Phil had one towel down for Clint to rest his elbow and another twisted up to make a shoulder-relocating assistive device. “I understand you’ve done this before, so I won’t warn you it’s going to hurt.”

“Already hurts,” Clint said, then gritted his teeth while Phil pulled the bones apart and back together. “Jesus, _ow_ , I always forget.”

“So it’s a _regular_ occurrence, then, not just something that’s happened to you twice.”

“Well not every week. I mean, that’s the fourth time.” Clint didn’t say, _on that side_ , because really, what kind of idiot managed to fuck up _each_ shoulder repeatedly? “But shit, it always sucks worse than I remember.”

“Like giving birth.”

“Uh. I wouldn’t know?”

“Neither would I, but my sister always swears never again, but she has four kids now and evidently it’s a known thing in obstetrics, forgetting in order to do it again.”

“Well, I plan to have zero screaming infants come out of my screaming shoulder, so. Anyway, why was the table moved?”

“Largely because I had no reason to expect you to come back to the shop by dropping in like fucking Spider-man.”

“Did not. I don’t have any web goo shooty things.”

“No, just a bow and arrow and ridiculous acrobatics.” Phil had a pair of scissors in his hand. “I assume this shirt doesn’t have any kevlaresque qualities or anything.”

“Why? Hey, no, it’s a perfectly good shirt. You can’t go cutting--”

“It has a slice where you’re bleeding, and also a bunch of blood. You really want to lift your arm up to take it off?”

“Okay, maybe no, but I mean, were you going to warn me?”

“Yes. When I asked if it was kevlar.” Phil held up the scissors. “I plan to cut your shirt off and look at that cut, and then make you take the whole mess to the clinic with your new improved insurance. Since I organized the businesses on the block as a collective, you were eligible for a group rate that is cheaper for you and your employees, and also lowers the likelihood you’d be kicked out for too many fractures, punctures, and/or second-degree burns.” He set about slicing neatly up Clint’s sleeve, then came back the other way from the collar. “Yep, this is going to the clinic. Also, how many times...” He pulled back and squinted at Clint. “You have at least a dozen significant scars that I can see right now.”

“Well, I mean, I don’t heal that clean, and also when I was a kid I, um, got into a lot of trouble.”

“These aren’t kid scars.” Phil traced the one that came up from the bump in Clint’s collarbone to just past the meaty join of the trapezius to the spine. “This looks like it was a near miss.”

“Too much near, not enough miss. Man, I know they look like shit, but like, you were the one who wanted to cut my damn shirt off.” Clint squirmed, wincing again as he reached for the other clean towel. “If you’re making me take it to the doc, we might as well go, I guess.” He pressed the towel to the sluggish bleeding of the jagged cut, ignoring how the pressure hurt, and stood up. “Or I mean, _I_ might as well. You don’t gotta come.”

Phil gave him a _look_ , then produced a hoodie from somewhere, tossed it around Clint’s shoulders, and neatly took the quiver and bow off him. “I wasn’t objecting the appearance of your scars, more the existence because they look like every one of them hurt. Also, if I stayed behind, I’d never learn what happened tonight.”

“Who says I’m tellin’?”

Phil shrugged, put Clint’s stuff in the cabinet behind the counter, and walked with him to the door. “You know, I’m starting to wonder whether a permanent security presence in this neighborhood might be worth pooling resources for.”

Clint side-eyed him. “As opposed to?”

“The intermittent and apparently dangerous work you and evidently Mack do to keep out the riffraff.”

Clint blinked. “Mack?”

“You use a bow. He uses an axe. I have no idea.”

\--

“So, you didn’t ever explain why you were in the shop last night,” Clint said, scowling at the sling on his arm and trying, despite the fog of the painkiller he’d reluctantly taken to get some sleep, to struggle himself upright. Phil was camped out on the couch ‘in case he needed anything in the night,’ but since Clint’s apartment was extremely open-plan (read: a bathroom and one 18-by-40-foot room with a kitchenette marked off by a pair of narrow tables at one end, and a rail for a curtain, which he’d never bothered to have, below the foot of the big bed at the other. In between there was a couch, and a coffee table and a TV. Hey, it all worked okay) this meant he was more or less in the bedroom anyway. Ish.

Phil started to answer, but Clint held up his free hand. “Wait, ears.” He rummaged for the aids and inserted one, then the other. “Okay, go.”

“I was there to encourage Mack and Yoyo, of course. Also, I thought based on previous observation you were likely to encounter your goons. Which you did. Again. For the how many-th time?”

“Too many. Eth.”

“And I figured maybe you’d need a hand, especially if the place was unexpectedly empty.”

“And this fits into your accountancy role, how?” Clint was upright now, sitting on the edge of the bed and staring with annoyance into his chest of drawers looking for a shirt he could put on.

“Doesn’t. But, as you previously noted, I’m part field medic, part yenta. It’s good to have hobbies.” Phil got up and looked into the drawer as well. “I could slice the arm and side of one if you want, lace it back up the outside. Although it would be a pity to mar the perfection that is this Bay City Rollers antique.”

“Fuck you.”

“Or you could just stick with Mack’s hoodie, zip it up over the sling.”

“It’s Mack’s? I barely know the guy. How am I wearing his clothes?”

Phil shrugged. “Well, it’s convenient he left it, anyway. Want some eggs?”

Clint frowned. “So, okay. You showed up, doctored me once. Started keeping my books. Created a neighborhood collaborative something or other, met everyone for a couple of blocks, fixed my shoulder, made me go to the doctor and by the way they should keep him regardless of immigration status he was hilarious, crashed on my couch, and now you’re cooking for me. Like, you know I cook shit for a living? Wait, fuckity, who’s opening the store?”

“Darcy came in early, and Leo brought in another friend to help at the counter. All is under control, and word on the street is that I should see the other guy, so I think maybe that’s under control, too.”

“I amend my previous. After ‘made me go to the doctor,’ add, ‘managed my staff ad hoc’.”

“Like I said, I have hobbies. Eggs?”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Fine. Eggs. But if they’re rubbery I’m complaining. Just because you’re voluntarily fixing shit doesn’t obligate me to be nice.”

“Let’s see if they’re rubbery before you decide.” Phil left Clint with Mack’s hoodie and his favorite sweatpants and went to find a skillet.

(Naturally, the eggs were perfect. And so was the toast. Clint wondered how long it would be before he was relying on Phil for kitchen help, too. ...Not that he was upset by the prospect of mornings in the kitchen together, )

\--

Clint rubbed his sore shoulder for a few minutes, looking around the shop. A couple of regulars were lingering at twenty to closing along with a new guy, an obnoxious goateed architect that Phil was probably three minutes away from inducting into their neighborhood association, but for the first time in a while everything was pretty caught up. He rolled his neck and wiped down the counter again, then checked that his till was balanced. When he looked up, Phil was locking the door behind the architect, who was looking at a business card that Clint could see from here had Phil’s name on it. Of course. 

Of course. He’d been in Clint’s life for a whopping ten weeks, the last half or so of which had been constant and snarky and awesome, and all of a sudden he had this terrible thought: what if the card was because the architect, who probably had a whole firm or something, had a full time opening? What if that meant after all this he was going to jump ship? Or jump part of the ship? Or otherwise not be in Clint’s back pocket thirty or so hours a week? Ugh, what if this really _was_ all just temporary while he looked for a better deal? Everyone probably was a better deal. 

Clint shook his head at himself. Jesus, he was bad at people. But... “So,” he said. “It seems like you’ve really made yourself at home here.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No.” Clint shrugged. “Okay, maybe, because here’s the thing. “I’m a huge sucker for competence, which you have coming out every pore in your body. I dig snark, and you are there with it. I.” He paused. “So, okay. I maybe developed a deeply ridiculous crush on your eyes before I ever burned my hand, and if you’re going to be here, all the time, taking care of everything including me, I figure I should just tell you this now so you can flee or shoot me down or whatever? But like, if you’re gonna go off and work for the architect, what’s his name?”

“Stark.”

“Okay, Stark. Stark the architect. The Starchitect? Whatever. I kind of want to know before I decide if I want to inappropriately as your occasional boss throw myself at you or like, wait and know if I should throw myself at not-my-employee, or, um, I had a point but I lost it.”

“Maybe it was all the flinging.”

“So?”

“So, in order, I hope you call him the starchitect where he hears you because he will either explode or pay you royalties. Even odds. Next, in sum you are my 15 percent employer at this point; I would not starve if I felt harassed and removed myself from your employ. After that, no, I currently have no such plan.”

“That wasn’t a comment on the flinging.”

“No, it was.”

“So that’s a no, then.”

Phil hadn’t moved away from the door, and now he turned back to it and swiveled the handle that rotated the slats on the blinds, closing them tight. Next he moved to the front window and closed the blinds there, and then the other side. Then he looked at Clint. “More a yes, actually.”

Clint blinked. “Oh?”

“Maybe a yes right now?”

“I. What?”

“You take care of your neighborhood and put your body on the line to do it. You feed people, and don’t think I don’t see the giveaways in your budget. You employ people. You work hard and you’re a sarcastic smartass and maybe that burn was the only excuse I needed? Unless that whole speech wasn’t an indication you wanted--” Phil broke off and gestured back and forth between them as Clint walked toward him. 

“Are you kidding me right now? Like, okay, I just said I wanted to know if you were going to leave me and you close the blinds and I think shit have I totally misjudged and you’re with the Russian mob and now is when you surprise murder me or something and actually no, you’re wondering do I mean, for fuck’s sake okay also and you take care of me all the time and have since day one so like, I think now would be a good time for kissing only why was it important to close the blinds?”

Phil grinned. “In case we do more than kissing.”

Clint didn’t see any reason to argue with that concept.

\--

Clint woke up warm at just daybreak – too hot, actually, tossing back the blankets and trying to roll over only to find that Phil, who always looked contained and organized awake, was both rumpled as shit in his sleep and, apparently, mister grabby hands regarding overly toasty blankets.

It was a good look. Clint reached for his hearing aids and shoved one in.

“Hey.” His throat was sore from what might have been slight overenthusiasm in the blowjob department, but he was sure he’d improve with consistent practice. Or he’d just have a sore throat a lot; that would be okay.

“Hey,” Phil grumbled back. “Cold.”

Clint chuckled and turned toward him. “It was a million degrees under that blanket!”

“It was perfect, and now it is cold.”

“I see. And how do you propose I fix that problem?”

“Blanket,” Phil said. He opened his eyes. “So that here in a few minutes when I make you sweat you don’t catch a chill.”

Clint beamed. But-- “Just out of curiosity, did you arrange for someone to open the store while we were having sex and I missed it, or...”

Phil blinked at him. “Um. No? I could call Darcy?”

“And tell her what, that I’m too post-coital to come to work?”

“Probably not.” Phil pursed his lips, then reached up and ran a hand across Clint’s forehead. “You do feel warm, though. Fever?”

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

Phil pulled him close and offered a thorough kiss that all but made Clint see stars, then pulled the blanket back over both of them. “It is. Where’s my phone?”

“What, we both have this fever? Oh _that_ won’t look suspicious _at all_.”

“Kissing will do that. Shared germs, crazy how you can wind up sharing a 24-hour bug.”

Clint snorted, then reached behind him for Phil’s phone on the nightstand.

Yeah, sure. It wasn’t super responsible, but he was responsible a lot. Almost every damn day. And night. And right now, he had a text to send.

...Just as soon as Phil let him up for air.


End file.
